Percy Bysshe Shelley

On Aug. 4, 1735, freedom of the press was established in the American colonies when John Peter Zenger, publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, was acquitted of libel charges brought by New York Gov. William Crosby. In 1792 poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place near Horsham, England. In 1830 James Thompson completed the first survey and plan of Chicago. In 1914 Britain declared war on Germany, and the United States declared its neutrality in...

Betty Bennett, 71, a literature professor at American University who was a leading authority on the life of "Frankenstein" author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her circle of friends, died of lung cancer Aug. 12. Ms. Bennett's decades-long scholarly fascination with Shelley--author at 19 of the Gothic classic and widow at 24 of English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley--made her somewhat of a literary sleuth. Her search for letters and intimate details of Shelley's life took her across 158,000 miles and...

On July 8, 1497, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon and discovered a sea route to India by going around the southern tip of Africa. In 1663 King Charles II of England granted clergyman Roger Williams a charter for Rhode Island. In 1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English poet, drowned when his boat capsized off Spezia, Italy. In 1835 the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia cracked as it was being rung for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall....

The story of the birth of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is well-known. Mary and her husband, Percy; their friend, Lord Byron; Claire Clairmont, Byron's mistress; and the physician John Polidori spent an evening telling hair-raising stories at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in 1816. It was 18-year-old Mary who came up with the most compelling narrative: the story of a scientist whose attempt to create life went terribly wrong. Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler,...

On Aug. 4, 1792, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born near Horsham, England. In 1892 Lizzie Borden was arrested in Fall River, Mass., and charged with the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother. (She was acquitted.) In 1912 Raoul Wallenberg, the businessman and diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II, was born in Stockholm. In 1914 Britain declared war on Germany, and the U.S. declared its neutrality in World War I. In...

On Aug. 4, 1792, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born near Horsham, England. In 1892 Lizzie Borden was arrested in Fall River, Mass., and charged with the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother. (She was acquitted.) In 1912 Raoul Wallenberg, the businessman and diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II, was born in Stockholm. In 1914 Britain declared war on Germany, and the U.S. declared its neutrality in World War I. In...

Percy Bysshe Shelley may be dead lo these 163 years, but we can be certain nonetheless that the poet is not being allowed to rest undisturbed. Indeed, he must have been sent spinning in his grave to find his work misread and himself misrepresented by Jon Margolis in "The novelist's world and our own" (Tribune, Jan. 20), a piece disparaging those members of International PEN who convened at a meeting in New York last month. Questioning the judgment of a body of individuals who would hiss...

Despite being a cornerstone of western dramatic mythology, "Prometheus Bound" is one tricky tragedy to mount in a contemporary American theater. Not only must a director deal with a static protagonist who's chained to a less-than-thrilling rock for most of the proceedings, but the assorted non-humans who visit the oppressed stealer of fire come with their own practical theatrical problems. Try staging "Enter, pursued by gadfly," without provoking guffaws. This is why, "The...

"This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." -Psalms, 118:24. Rejoice indeed. This week, three weeks before Thanksgiving, there was a celebration of days so glorious they seemed out of place and time. One even equaled a record for warmth, but that was an incidental statistic. The true measure was their rapture. Chicagoans were back on the beach, shirtsleeves were back on Michigan Avenue, lovers were back for one last glimpse of the wildflowers in Grant...

It was inevitable that Howard Brenton, the 20th Century English dramatist and leftist activist, should one day write a play about the relationship between George Gordon Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, two great English Romantic poets and "revolutionary apostles" (as he calls them) of the 19th Century. "Bloody Poetry," produced in 1984, is Brenton's take on that period, 1816-22, when the the lives of Byron and Shelley were often intertwined. It begins with Shelley's...

Betty Bennett, 71, a literature professor at American University who was a leading authority on the life of "Frankenstein" author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her circle of friends, died of lung cancer Aug. 12. Ms. Bennett's decades-long scholarly fascination with Shelley--author at 19 of the Gothic classic and widow at 24 of English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley--made her somewhat of a literary sleuth. Her search for letters and intimate details of Shelley's life took her across 158,000 miles and...

Cemeteries have strange effects on people. Some find them morbid, disturbing places and wouldn't--pardon the pun--be caught dead in them. Others appreciate the rich and often neglected heritage that lurks behind the ominous walls. You can learn a lot about a country and about a society by spending some time in its cemeteries. Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall have done just that in various locations around the world. Photojournalists from New York and the authors of "Permanent Parisians," they have spent a great...

Despite being a cornerstone of western dramatic mythology, "Prometheus Bound" is one tricky tragedy to mount in a contemporary American theater. Not only must a director deal with a static protagonist who's chained to a less-than-thrilling rock for most of the proceedings, but the assorted non-humans who visit the oppressed stealer of fire come with their own practical theatrical problems. Try staging "Enter, pursued by gadfly," without provoking guffaws. This is why, "The...

Within Tuscany By Matthew Spender Viking, 367 pages, $27.50 Matthew Spender is one of those rare expatriates who can go native while retaining a critic's eye for his adopted homeland. A quarter of a century ago, Spender, a nephew of the noted poet Stephen Spender and himself a sculptor, bid farewell to the rainy landscapes of his British youth. He and his wife bought an abandoned farm house near Siena, Italy, where they raised beans, cabbages and the two...

It was inevitable that Howard Brenton, the 20th Century English dramatist and leftist activist, should one day write a play about the relationship between George Gordon Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, two great English Romantic poets and "revolutionary apostles" (as he calls them) of the 19th Century. "Bloody Poetry," produced in 1984, is Brenton's take on that period, 1816-22, when the the lives of Byron and Shelley were often intertwined. It begins with Shelley's...

By Reviewed by W.D. Wetherell, an author whose most recent novel is ``Chekhov`s Sister.`` | April 12, 1992

Love's Children By Judith Chernaik Knopf, 229 pages, $20 If you`re looking for a literate soap opera that mixes high moral principle with illicit sexual passion, genius with madness, poetry with bathos, it would be hard to top the story of Percy Bysshe Shelley and the women who grouped around him in his brief, turbulent career. There is his first wife Harriet Westbrook, who commits suicide when he breaks her heart; Mary Shelley, his second wife, daughter of...

The story of the birth of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is well-known. Mary and her husband, Percy; their friend, Lord Byron; Claire Clairmont, Byron's mistress; and the physician John Polidori spent an evening telling hair-raising stories at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in 1816. It was 18-year-old Mary who came up with the most compelling narrative: the story of a scientist whose attempt to create life went terribly wrong. Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler,...

Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality By Emily W. Sunstein Little Brown, 478 pages, $24.95 Emily Sunstein's biography gives Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley the place denied her as one of the major literary figures of the 19th Century romantic age, and as an appropriate heroine for the contemporary women's movement. She reasserts the originality that enabled Shelley to write "Frankenstein" at 19; that had her, in "The Last Man," write the first futuristic catastrophe...

Within Tuscany By Matthew Spender Viking, 367 pages, $27.50 Matthew Spender is one of those rare expatriates who can go native while retaining a critic's eye for his adopted homeland. A quarter of a century ago, Spender, a nephew of the noted poet Stephen Spender and himself a sculptor, bid farewell to the rainy landscapes of his British youth. He and his wife bought an abandoned farm house near Siena, Italy, where they raised beans, cabbages and the two...

A literary magazine is the cause that brings together the Cambridge University colleagues in Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Midwest premiere of "The Common Pursuit," by Simon Gray. What sets these same persons against each other are those old standbys: compromise, divorce, bankruptcy and death. "Pursuit," which opens Sunday, is, like "Butley," "Otherwise Engaged" and "Quartermaine's Terms," one more example of Gray's dramatic forte, the dogged depiction of middle-aged disillusionment.